Image credit: Shawna Coppola via Canva
By Christopher Lehman, Founding Director of The Educator Collaborative
On any given weekday, thousands of photocopiers across the world are most assuredly churning out sheet after sheet of Reading Logs.
Reading Logs are written into curricula, sent via Child Express in red “Take Home” folders, and collected by teachers by the ream (and filed under “recycle”). They are everywhere—sans the classrooms where teachers have vehemently banned their use.
As a teacher, I, too, have sent them home for signature to verify the accuracy of “at home” pages read.
As a parent, I, too, have faked the accuracy of my children’s “at home” pages read.
Child: “But I didn’t read today.”
Me: “Your teacher truly doesn’t care. Just write anything and I’ll sign it.”
Reading Logs can absolutely be the biggest waste of time and natural resources. If you are one of those Log-deniers, I do not blame you. You may stop reading now.
A Log By Any Other Name
Logs become a wasteful nuisance if there is no purpose to them. Whether we include them by habit or because the [curriculum/literacy specialist/administrator] says to–if they are not tied to meaningful practices, then they are just an exercise in compliance.
But logging information, in and of itself, is not without merit. There are many things people choose to log or track in their lives.
Sometimes tracking information can teach you things. Spotify and Apple Music, for example, track your top songs and artists and then share a very buzzy year-end review. It’s fun to see the kind of music you listened to or laugh at albums you didn’t realize you had on repeat (or blame someone else for putting them on too often in your house. Let’s just for argument’s sake say, perhaps, maybe, an artist like, oh I don’t know, Enya. I do like Enya. But not enough for her to be in my top 10. How did she get there? Why is she there? I’m not looking at someone in my house as I type this. I am only imagining Enya as an example of someone that very much surprisingly showed up on my most recent year-end review). This snapshot of your year in music teaches you something about your listening habits and can even influence your January listening (as you swear you will never be caught with Enya on your list again. Again, I do like her. But not as much as Spotify says I do).
Sometimes logging information can help you with your goals. I have a fitness app on my phone. It has many, many, many features, most of which I do not use. I am choosing what I want to track, for how long, based on my goals. When I am trying to be more active, I pay more attention to my steps. When my doctor said I needed to reduce some body fat, I logged my scale numbers daily. Once I got closer to where I wanted to be, I switched to logging only once or twice a week.
Some people track their plant-baby watering needs. Some people track their human-baby sleep cycles. Some people track their eating out budgets. (No one tracks their streaming services subscriptions and yet everyone should.)
Tracking information is a habit that, when done purposefully, can have many benefits.
To Thine Own Self Be True
We can make Reading Logs more meaningful and purposeful by thinking across three categories:
- student goals – How can this help students set goals?
- useful data – How can this help students and help me reflect?
- differentiation – How can they meet different needs?
The typical Reading Log usually has spaces for information like the date, title, and pages read. Some may include other columns for author, genre, Lexile level, rating, signature (blushing), and so forth.
What goes on the Reading Log, however, is only as meaningful as what we want to get out of it.
Less Is More.
If my goal is to have students increase their reading volume, then I don’t need to overcomplicate their logs with lots of extraneous information.
For instance, Penny Kittle, author of Book Love, a book on developing passionate adolescent readers, describes a whole class version of a book log that focuses on tracking pages. The columns are:
| StudentNames | Title | Page Number | Total Pages | ||||
| Mon | Tues | Wed | Thurs | Fri | |||
The entire class is listed. Each day, students briefly record the page they are on. On Friday they add up their pages.
This log supports the student goal of reading volume and it provides useful data to both the student and the teacher (in this case, Penny). It is focused and efficient.
Reflection Is Key.
Logs are more useful—and are taken more seriously—when they lead to reflection.
When Dr. Chantal Francois, former TheEdCollab Fellow, was literacy coach at East Side Community High School, she and her team used a version of reading logs where half the page was space for student reflection! The top half looked like a typical Reading Log, but the entire bottom half allowed space for students to respond to three questions:
- Did you meet your monthly goal? Why or why not?
- What strategies are helping you meet your goal? What obstacles are holding you back?
- What ideas do you have about next month’s goal?
There is something so powerful in saving that much space for students to actively manage their own goal setting through reflection. This kind of a log supports student goals that they set themselves (or did so in concert with their teacher), provides useful data in the form of both information and reflection, and is differentiated to each student.
Choice Is Life.
Reading Logs can become mundane if they remain the same for all students, all year long. In my health tracking app example, I decide the functions I need to use and those I can ignore, based on my personal goals. What and how often I track data changes over time. What I track is going to be different than what you might track or what Simone Biles might track.
We can think and talk about Reading Logs with our students in similar ways. Instead of offering a one size fits all, we can invent different logs for different purposes or even have students make decisions about what data will help them grow.
For example, here (see p. 2) is a log that a student could use who is working on reading stamina. They could decide to track only pages, only minutes, or both. Notice that it includes space for reflection.
Perhaps a student already loves to read and does it regularly. Then there is no need for them to track pages!
Maybe, instead, they are a reader who forgets to jot in response to their reading, making it harder for them to track text evidence and ideas to use in conversations and writing later. They could use a log like this one (see p. 5) to track the quantity (or quality) of their responses to their reading. Again, with a space for reflection.
Different logs could be available for different purposes. Here is one (see p. 1) that incorporates different options all in one place. It is a log that requires only one master to copy, but has lots of options for goal setting built in.
All That Glitters Is Not ‘Goal‘
A Reading Log is only as useful as its use. We should not use them just to use them. Without a clear purpose and a meaningful reflection process, they become just another to-do that quickly loses value for students and families (and often, us too). In that case, we might as well not use them.
However, if we can ask ourselves these questions…
- How can this help students set goals? (student goals)
- How can this help students (and help me) reflect? (useful data)
- How can they meet different needs? (differentiation)
…then we can invent forms and processes that make the most out of them. If differentiated Reading Logs can help students set goals, work towards them, and reflect, then we can help them take more ownership of growing their reading practice. We can shift from dictating compliance to facilitating self-reflection.
